Recording kick with a condenser.

[ChristopherDawn]

I'm about to go into a session tomorrow and record a band over the weekend.

I just got in a brand spankin' new Soundelux u195 and I was curious about using it on the kick drum. I was thinking a d112 close to the beater to pick up the click and then the u195 further away to pick up the bottom?

Anybody have some experiences with this type of set up they'd like to share with me as well as any tips or tricks I could try out?



The rest of the set will be miced up with mxl 603s for ohs and probably just a sm57 on the snare and toms. I'm going to be putting the snare and kick (probably u195) through a Great River mp-2nv, and the rest through Soundcraft M-Series pres straight to a Delta 1010.

 

[eeldip]

my LDC rule of thumb: 3 feet in front of kick.

works very well. often you dont need a beater mic. 2 mics on bass drum often have very nasty phase.

oh and make sure the LDC is in a shock mount. lots of vibration near a drum set can get transferred to the mic.

i have heard that the 195 rocks in this role. never used a mic that nice myself.

 

[teainthesahara]

I've done that on a few session and loved the way it sounded. I would imagine that you would get great results using that great mic! You might want to also try builing a tunnel (see pic) if you want to isolate the LDC on kick. This way, I was able to mix in the specific amounts of the beater and the LDC pretty much independently from the whole kit, which is great if your going for that sound.

This method is also great for getting really useable kick sounds for those who only have budget mics to work with (in my case it was a unidyne III shure on the beater, Apex 430 LDC 3 ft out - total mic cost: $95). Usually no eq needed, and the bright characteristic of many cheap LDC's usually usually dont cause problems in this role.

T